Frilly dresses and white supremacy: welcome to the weird, frightening world of 'trad wives'

[babylonsister]

Frilly dresses and white supremacy: welcome to the weird, frightening world of ‘trad wives’
Sian Norris
No longer a far-right subculture, the movement’s anti-feminist tenets are now inserting themselves into mainstream western politics
Wed 31 May 2023 09.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 31 May 2023 10.02 EDT

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Welcome to the weird and frightening world of trad wives, where women spurn modern, egalitarian values to dedicate their lives to the service of their husbands. My research into this far-right subculture began during the writing of my book on the far right and reproductive rights. I was curious to learn how the movement, determined to reduce women to reproductive vessels to aid white male supremacy, recruited women to its cause. The answer was a toxic combination of anti-feminism, white supremacy, normalised abuse and a desire to return to an imagined past.

Trad wives can be traced back to the Red Pill Women forum that was set up in 2013. According to research from Julia Ebner in 2020, 30,000 women identified as Red Pill Women or trad wives. As with most far-right trends, most of them appear to be in the US, but due to the networked nature of the modern far right, trends that start stateside don’t remain there. Interviews I conducted revealed that the British far right encourages its women to be trad, with women attending nationalist conferences such as the annual Patriotic Alternative conference, and making a name for themselves on the far-right infosphere.

The subculture shares aesthetics and values across the Atlantic. Long, floral dresses are the norm, idealising a mythic past of feminine modesty. Women should be covered up, as their bodies are just for their husbands. A woman’s role is to stay at home, serving her spouse domestically and sexually, while her partner goes to work to support her. Men should “discipline” women.

Unsurprisingly, they are anti-feminist, with the far right recruiting women to the trad lifestyle by claiming feminism has failed to make them happy. While not a trad wife herself, “alt-right” influencer Lauren Southern shot to fame by claiming feminism taught women “to work 9–5 and drink wine every night until their ovaries dry up”.

And, of course, they’re white. One meme I encountered on Telegram during my research summed up a good trad wife as being “knowledgable about her European roots” and who “loves her family, race and culture”. Leading the tribe is far-right influencer Ayla Stewart, who shot to social media fame when her notorious “white baby challenge” went viral after she declared: “As a mother of six, I challenge families to have as many white babies as I have contributed.”

more...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/31/white-supremacy-trad-wives-far-right-feminist-politics

[yardwork]

1. That didn't work out well for Lauren Boebert.

This movement is doomed to fail. There are few jobs now that allow one spouse to support a family on their one income. There are especially few high paying jobs for young people who were homeschooled, didn't learn any science, and can't reason.

[area51]

36. +1 n/t

[Chainfire]

2. The only thing that kept my family in a middle class lifestyle was having two wager earners.

I would suggest this lifestyle to my wife, but I just can't stand an asswhooping in the morning.

[TheProle]

3. "And, of course, they're white."

I've been writing long enough to know it's important to frame a story, but even a tiny bit of research would have uncovered that this is cutting across racial lines.

https://www.tiktok.com/tag/blackhousewife

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2022/12/11161942/tiktok-black-tradwives-burnout-marriage-capitalism

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. Yeah, much more accurate to highlight the white supremacy of it rather than the whiteness of those

who practice it.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. If that's how these women choose to live, is it really anyone else's business?

We're all doing our best to create a scenario where women don't HAVE TO live this way, and we're all proud of that, I'm sure. As we should be.

But you can only lead the proverbial horse to water

[obamanut2012]

11. Yes.

[Mister Ed]

12. Trouble is, they'll never settle for "live and live."

Fanatics like these never rest until they can force everyone else to live as they dictate.

And then there's the white supremacy component. White supremacists are not likely to be content to merely increase the white population by having more babies.

[hlthe2b]

17. To an extent; but the article does touch on the role that systemic ABUSE plays.

So, this is not that different, IMO as the cults. These women MAY have originally had willing choices--ones that appear to be now relinquished in at least some cases. Control by abuse is no longer a "choice."

So, no. I don't think this is a matter of our need to "mind our own business."

[pnwmom]

18. Oh, come on. They're banning abortion for ALL women. They're banning books for ALL kids.

They're not stopping with their own wives and families -- they are pushing to create a culture where everyone is forced to live by their rules.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

20. To the extent they try to do that, then of course I'm against their efforts

But what they do at home/in their relationships is their business.

[pnwmom]

25. What they're doing at home is a preview of what they want to do to all of us.

We shouldn't be as oblivious to that danger as many were to the danger of Trump. Remember when some people thought he was a joke? And supported 3rd party candidates because Hillary wasn't perfect and they were sure he'd never win?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

33. Not really sure how these aren't just the same people we've been fighting with

our entire lives as liberals.

There's always been this subset of 'trad wives', it's just a re-brand not a new fight I don't think.

In our grandparents generation it was like 80% of them.

[pnwmom]

34. They are the same -- except now they're empowered. They have basically taken over the R party,

Last edited Wed May 31, 2023, 05:48 PM - Edit history (2)

and the R party in many states is gerrymandering itself into permanent power.

Look what they've done to abortion rights in just a couple years. And now they're going after LGBTQ people.

Yes, in our grandparents' generation there were many more of these patriarch-supporters, at least among white Christians -- and that's what they want to force America to return to.

I don't think you understand the visceral reaction millions of women have to that idea. Yes, the Christian patriarchy was entrenched in our grandparents generation. And so women have fought for a hundred years just to find themselves fighting the same battle?

[Initech]

5. There was a video going around Twitter a few months ago.

Where some guy was preparing his daughters for this level of servitude and it was fucking weird and creepy as hell. This is what the MAGAs want for our country. Hell no.

[UTUSN]

6. I saw a group of KKKs in 1965 outside of a college campus. First there was a traffic jam

caused by the (men) marching their parade, them in their robes and peaked Inquisition headgear, faces uncovered. My parents were visiting and we went to the old time cafeteria. The dining area was full of them, out of their robes and with their wives, all in all uniform matching square dancing attire, the women in blue checkered dresses, the men in matching blue checkered shirts.

[PatSeg]

23. That is so creepy

Like some bizarre Pod People.

[Jilly_in_VA]

7. Marabel Morgan rides again!

Anybody remember her? I thought not.

[underpants]

9. Saran Wrap

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marabel_Morgan

[PatSeg]

24. Yeah, that rings a bell

[nuxvomica]

28. The name makes me think of cellophane

Is she the one who said wives should greet their husbands at the door wearing nothing but Saran-Wrap? IIRC, comedians had a lot of fun with that.

[llmart]

37. Oh, hell yes I remember her.

About 1974, right? Told women to meet their husbands at the door wrapped in Saran Wrap? I was invited to a neighbor's house for a get-together to discuss her book. I was 24 and said hell no, I won't be going.

[brush]

8. What a weird subculture. Most married couples need two incomes...

just to keep the wolves from the door nowadays. Trad wives...where are they finding high income mates who want such a wife?

[NewHendoLib]

10. Cults form so easily these days

Lack of critical thinking, lack of self esteem, power of narcissistic influencers.

Sad.

[Wounded Bear]

22. The internet allows splinter groups like that to find each other and grow...

Otherwise they'd be stuck in the outback of Utah and the Deep South. The internet allows it to bleed into suburbia.

[NewHendoLib]

27. Yup

[Hortensis]

13. RW nationalist movements are always male power movements.

Not of course always white power as some places the dominant race isn't. But always male power.

That passion for male superiority and women's subjugation likely explains a great deal of the appeal of America's dominant white nationalism to some nonwhite males. Those also tend to be racist and ethnophobic to varying degrees, and white nationalism offers a chance to team up the ol' antipathy against groups of choice.

Btw, I went over to reddit's Red Pill Women and was amused to pick up on the typical American feminist culture and expectations they were raised with in most of the posts I read. Many of these women may be religious but a whole bunch are not, and most may call themselves antifeminist, and believe it, but only extremist and religious fundamentalists who are no doubt there too (social media, after all!) really are.

I saw shopping cart feminism with pretty full baskets. No doubt there are more extremist forums.

Q: "Is it cheap to stop having premarital sex as a high body count woman? I was thinking of becoming religious but I don't want to scam anybody."

( )

A: "If you don’t like who you are, things you do, how you’ve pursued relationships, etc… you can change and become whoever you want to be and you don’t need an excuse or owe anyone an explanation. This is part of personal growth, many grow out of phases they had when we are younger. The thing is, you actually have to change… and that might take some time."

A: "Also don’t be the kind of woman who uses words like “body count” and stay away from others who do. I do not think you'd be happy with the type of men who are desperate enough to wait for a non virgin."

The ones presumably looking hopefully for women in long skirts.

[2naSalit]

15. +1

[Caliman73]

14. Since when has the goal of Feminism been to make women "happy"?

I found that line, and I find the idea to be stupid. The goal of Feminism is to have women be regarded with equal dignity and respect as men have been historically. It is to allow women to achieve goals and express themselves without the added obstacles imposed by patriarchal forms of power. Since those goals have not been fully realized, how can people say that "feminism failed to make them happy"

Most of the problems that women face today are the results of the still intact patriarchy and of the soul crushing effects of living in a hyper capitalist society.

Feminism doesn't tell women that they cannot focus on motherhood, or support a husband. It merely says that those things should be the woman's CHOICE free from coercion and imposition. Feminism also says that the choice to be a mother and homemaker, should not result in a life of servitude and derision, but should be regarded with equal dignity and respect as any "job" that men undertake. Also, for the record, for men who CHOOSE to take on the role of stay at home father and home maker, feminism posits that they should not be derided as doing "women's work" and devalued. Feminism seeks to free men from the constraints that we have put on ourselves as well with the ideas of "proper masculinity".

All this stupid "trad" shit is just people misattributing the sources of unhappiness and trying to solve complex problems with WRONG and stupid, simple solutions.

[tanyev]

19. There was a family that caught my attention years ago

while doing the tourist thing at the St. Louis Arch. I assumed they were an ultra-conservative religion because the mom and the daughter were wearing some type of long voluminous skirts with sneakers in the middle of summer. I don’t remember exactly what the outfits looked like, but they were definitely different from what other young mothers and young girls were wearing at the time.

What really sealed it in my memory, though, was the fact that the dad and the son totally blended in—t-shirts and shorts just like every other guy in the room. Wouldn’t have noticed them at all if they hadn’t been standing next to their wimmenfolk. It seemed very, very unfair.

[hlthe2b]

21. Probably Mennonites. MO has a sizeable population.

[Jilly_in_VA]

29. Mennonites don't do frills

Trust me on that. We have loads of them here in the Shenandoah. Also quite a few of the less conservative, but still cap-wearing, ones work outside the home.

[hlthe2b]

32. No frills described by poster, but rather long voluminous skirts with sneakers...

There is likewise a large Amish Community (Jamesport, MO) but of course they remain far more traditional--both genders--compared to Mennonites.

[tanyev]

35. Could be. I guess there's different denominations of Mennonites, too.

Definitely not the ones where the men wear hats, suspenders or old-fashioned beards. And not the ones where women wore head coverings. I did find some photos where the men and boys wore typical clothes and the women and girls all wore long skirts and had long hair in a braid. That looked like what I remember.

[Jilly_in_VA]

38. There are multiple flavors of Mennonites here

Some are almost indistinguishable from Amish. Some wear what I refer to as "uniform dress"--the women and girls wear a specific kind of dress with pleats on either side of the bodice, elbow sleeves, and a longish gathered skirt, but they can be in rather colorful prints. After a certain age, the females will wear what my husband refers to a "sin sifter", a small, stiff white bonnet on the back of the head. And yes, they wear the hair long, a braid for girls and young women and a bun for married women. Sneakers are de rigeur, but you'll see flip-flops in summer. Men always wear long pants and some wear suspenders. Usually it's married men who wear beards, no mustaches. Men above their teens wear hats or even ball caps. These people are often what we call "black bumper" Mennonites, who will drive cars, but those cars can't have chrome. Others will drive cars that are what the Puritans would have referred to as "sad" colors--brown, dark green, or dark gray, again with minimal or no trim. And then there are those you can't tell from regular folks like you and me.

My neighbor down the hill is a Mennonite farmer in his early 40s. Nice guy. One of the middle of the road type, I guess. I didn't know they were Mennonites at all until the day we saw his wife out on her 4-wheeler. She was running a weed-wacker on the fenceline, dressed in her uniform dress, sneakers, and sin sifter. As she finished the row, she hopped on her 4-wheeler, waved to us, and sped off. Cognitive dissonance...but that's real common around here.

[Wingus Dingus]

39. There's women like this where I live in CO--I used to see

them at Walmart, although I haven't seen them in years. Hair in a long French braid down the back, long denim skirts, sneakers. Never figured out what denomination.

[Zeitghost]

40. I've seen the same dynamic

Generally in the local Pentecostal denominations. Also very common with many Muslim families I see, especially young families. Dad and sons in trendy, fashionable designer clothes, mom and daughters in very conservative long dresses with traditional head coverings.

[Iggo]

26. Ask 'em when America was great.

[jmowreader]

30. "1945! People really knew their place back then!"

Okay…you want a system where the top tax rate was 90 percent, you worked until you died at the same crappy job because your neighbors shunned you for leaving an employer, and your parents moved into your house after your dad retired and you paid to feed them because no one had a retirement plan. Good to know.

[Deep State Witch]

31. Kinder, Kuchen, and Kirschen

That's what the Nazis wanted from their women - "Children, Kitchen, and Church".

[milestogo]

41. I love my Viking Shield Maiden culture.